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SERMON XVIII.

AN AFFECTIONATE ADMONITION TO SEAMEN.

Acts xxvii. 20.

And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

THESE

HESE words represent to us in a very simple and affecting manner, the distress of a company of seamen, in a storm of long continuance. I apprehend there may be some of my audience who can, with that sympathy which experience alone gives, feel for the sufferers. Those of you, I mean, who know how terrible the sea is, when tempestuous; what it is to have been tossed up and down on that ungovernable element, threatened with ruin every moment by the mountainous waves. Reduced to such extremities; involved in profound darkness; uncertain every moment what the next will produce; and beholding first one, and then another part of a frail habitation failing; who can paint the horror, distraction, and despair of such a scene, but those persons whose experience and knowledge of maritime affairs enable them!

I shall not attempt it, being neither able to do justice to the tremendous scene, nor inclined to enter upon it, if I were able: for I have chosen these words

to speak from, not with a view for your entertainment, but for our profit. My design is to take occasion to speak to mariners some things that belong to their spiritual interests; and yet at the same time to say what may not be unworthy the attention of all my audience. May it please the Most High to pour down his Spirit upon us, and give us the hearing ear, the seeing eye, and the understanding heart, that we may pass through the ocean of life with Christ Jesus for our pilot, and under his guidance at length reach the shore of a blessed immortality.

How happy must it be for a man to be possessed of such a treasure in his heart, as to be enabled to meet the various troubles of life, serene, undaunted, and composed, from a well-grounded prospect of endless happiness. However the wicked and the careless may scorn a truly religious character, while they themselves are in ease and prosperity; yet when they come to experience scenes of distress, such as that which the text describes; when all hope of temporal salvation is taken away, they cannot but wish they were in the situation of the godly man, whose hope is laid up sure in heaven. His portion the winds and waves cannot destroy, though they may be the means of freeing him from the prison of the body, and ushering him into the possession of his heavenly home!

Such was the case of St. Paul; that poor, despised follower of a crucified Jesus; that prisoner in the ship, who was led to his trial as a mover of sedition, and one who turned the world upside down, as a pestilent fellow, who was not fit to live. Such term of reproach have constantly been the lot of the wisest

and most upright of the followers of Jesus, in all ages. They" are not of the world," but testify, with their master, that "the works thereof are evil;" therefore "the world hateth them," as it did him.

Yet what wicked, insensible sinner, who admits only the truth of a future state, but must see, how much more enviable was the condition of Paul thus circumstanced, thus covered with infamy, now that death threatened all the company, than the condition of the rest of the ship's crew. Involved in the horrors of a menacing tempest, they had no prospects of a happy eternity to cheer their hearts in this trying hour; but were either hardened in brutal insensibility, or trembled at the view of the torment without end, because they had lived without God in the world. Paul can say to this ship's crew, "the God whose I am and whom I serve." I am not my own, but his. To him have I given up myself; in storm, or calm; in sunshine, or darkness; in life, or death. I am safe. Underneath me are the everlasting arms. "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded he is able to keep that" soul" which I have committed to him against the last day."

How desirable is such an assurance of salvation! especially in trying and critical seasons. How can the man who thinks seriously of the value of his soul be happy on such occasions without being at peace with God? If men were deeply impressed with a sense of the value of their souls, they could not bear the idea of the near approach of eternity without it. That any can deride, as whimsical, this privilege of the saints, which the voice of Scripture and the experience of all earnest seekers after God demonstrate to be attainable, and content themselves with a hope

founded upon no certain grounds, must arise from that carelessness of spirit which keeps them from musing, at all, upon the dreadful state of dying unreconciled to God.

You who may shortly be called hence by Providence, to the mighty waters, reflect how possible it is that you may be brought into imminent danger of your lives. Is not then a knowledge of certain peace with God, in this life, desirable? Blessed be God, it may be had. Jesus still lives, and will for ever live. Seek to be acquainted with his real gospel, that which Paul preached. The constant attendant of this gospel has ever been the reproach of the wicked, from without; the consolations of God's holy Spirit from within. Content not yourselves with the form, the outside of religion. Consider how much happier it is to be able with Paul to say, "I am God's, and my God will protect me," though you be despised by the men of this world, than to share with those who are respected, and courted upon earth, though they live without God in the world. The same Jesus will be your's, and manifest to you the same blissful consolations, if you seek him.

If we look at the rest of the company in this ship, whose voyage and wreck is here described, we see a true picture of natural men, unconverted, and deplorably regardless of every admonition to take care of their souls; men not to be moved by the most imminent peril to call upon God. On the contrary, see how the mariners act! "Under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, they let down the boat into the sea, with an intent to flee out of the ship." What perfidy and cruelty is here! To leave the soldiers and prisoners,

who were their charge, to perish in the storm! Paul, indeed, discovered the base design, and prevented it. But we have another instance of hardened wickedness, which works with more deadly marks of desperate enmity against all goodness. It is the wickedness of the soldiers, I mean, who were for killing the prisoners, lest any should flee and make their escape. The humanity of their commander prevented it indeed; but that men, in such imminent peril of their lives themselves, should be capable of meditating such barbarity, would be surprising indeed, did not the fallen state of human nature, confirmed by the testimony of history in all ages, prove that nothing is too base and wicked for unconverted men to perpetrate.

Let me now look nearer home, and ask you, O mariners! are there not too many of you as void, as these men were, of the fear of God? As ungrateful to him for past preservations, as insensible of his kind providence, and living as much without real religion, and regard for your immortal souls?

Having opened the story of my text sufficiently for our present purpose, I shall consider, a little, the happiness of the really religious mariner, and the misery and folly of the too many irreligious ones among us, and labour to give some practical exhortations.

What can be conceived so desirable as for a man to have that within him which shall give him an inexhaustible fund of comfort and satisfaction, in all seasons, on all occasions, and in all possible circumstances? Born as we are with appetites and desires; weak and frail in ourselves, as all allow; corrupt and

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